“I was always told I wouldn’t make it as a recording artist. I was told that I wasn’t pretty enough to be on television. I grew up in a high school where if you weren’t thin, and you didn’t have a nose job and money, then you weren’t cool or popular or beautiful. But I knew what I wanted to be and I kept that in my head at all times. If you believe in yourself, you can make yourself whatever you want to be.”